These may be considered the chief varieties of Spanish arms in the Middle Ages. In other instances the French and Italian forms are adopted. The manufacture of arms was not reduced then as at a later date to the monopoly of the Government or to determined localities. Besides the arms made at Toledo, those of Seville, Granada, Valencia, Zaragoza, Barcelona, the Basque provinces, and Cuellar, were very famous. Readers of Shakespeare will remember Falstaff's _bilbo_, a rapier made at Bilbao in the Basque provinces. The principal merit of these arms consisted in the manner in which the artist tempered his metal. It was generally done at night in order to distinguish in the darkness the exact colour of the heated steel in dipping it into the water. The swords known by the name of _perrillo_ were highly esteemed in Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries; they were marked with a figure resembling a dog. Cervantes mentions and praises these blades in his "Rinconete y Cortadillo" and "Don Quixote." They were made by a Moor of Granada, who it is stated had been swordsman of King Boabdil, and became a Christian under the name of Julian del Rey. His godfather was King Ferdinand, and besides working at Granada he did so at Zaragoza and Toledo. When an artist of merit excelled in a given locality, it absorbed all the fame of this industry. During the Renaissance larger centres of this industry were established in large towns, and the fame of the objects they produced was concentrated there. Toledo absorbed the importance in the industry of sword making. We find that the Municipal Ordinances of the Middle Ages give very little information by which we can judge of the merits of the objects produced. A Guild of Armourers existed at Barcelona as early as 1257, and of Sword makers from the 14th century; but the information given concerning this subject is very slight. We find more details in the Ordinances of Toledo, Seville, and Granada, whence we learn that manufactories of arms existed in these towns.